Who governs the value chain of waste?

A living room for no one

Every once in a while, "The Independent", comes up with a great front page. Today is no exception. While every one else is bickering about minor election issues (was he tired, does he know the maths of his manifesto, is he a racist, will he serve a full term) The Independent (in true honour to its name) focused on the big picture: a fundamental issue that underlies everything that is not working in this country and in most developed countries of the world. "Britain throws away £20bn worth of unused food every year -equal to five times our spending on international aid and enough to lift 150 million people out of starvation".

This waste includes the fruit and vegetables left to rot in farms across the world because they are not "pretty" enough for supermarket standards. Apples that are not red enough, oranges that are not orange enough, bananas that are not yellow enough.

It also includes food that is thrown away by supermarkets because it has reached its "best by" date and that discarded by people that buy too much and forget what they had in the fridge.

But £20bn is a conservative estimate. Add to that the cost of producing the food that is left in the farms, the cost of transporting the food that is discarded by supermarkets and the cost of processing the food and waste thrown away by consumers. Add to that the opportunity cots of farmers, particularly those at the bottom of the chain.

Unfortunately, there is no easy solution for this. Let's say we the consumers but less. That would mean that the supermarket will buy less and the farmer will sell less: We are better off, the supermarket does not loose out (they will keep their profit margin), but the farmer is worse off. What is needed is a compete overhaul of the value chain. The consumer should by what it needs. The supermarket should pay a fair-trade price to the farmer and buy fruit and vegetables for what they taste like and not what they look like. And society needs to redistribute its savings towards the reduction of poverty and need.

The Independent needs to ask one more question: Who governs the value chain of waste?